Sunday, February 27, 2011

As the photo below proclaims, a new blog of mine lives. It brings together the Aztec traveling merchant of the pochteca with a (re)imagining of the pejorative 'pocho' in order to enunciate an academic identity.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

2011 Cs ATL Program
It's always a good idea to search the online program before going to Cs. It cuts down on the overwhelming sense of there always being too much to see, too many great speakers to meet and events to attend. (Cruz Medina on pages 8, 67 and 248!)

Friday, February 25, 2011

I was told that I needed to see the *Sleep Dealer* because it deals with technology, migrant laborers and the disposable bodies of factory workers in the borderlands. The story is sci-fi and has a satirical agenda that exposes a dark "American Dream" that asks for and utilizes a migrant labor force, but then wants it to disappear.

In undergrad, I took a course that looked at sci-fi as psychological fiction in that many of these outlandish ideas we see represented in films like Stepford Wives play on deeper psychological desires. Looking at Sleep Dealer in this same psychological context, I think the effectiveness of this film hinges on technology erasing racial markers, a concept that could be grounded in some of the tangible legislation that puts into place systems of control for racially marked bodies.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Check Out My Story in Acentos Review
In the middle of the chaos that is the comps and dis proposal process, I've somehow managed to channel some of my energy into creative work as well. Acentos Review is a great publication dedicated to representing the diversity of voices within the Latin@ community and I'm proud to be featured with other great writers.

In the class I teach this semester, I made blogs a requirement as a part of the research component. Having to do a bit with how this blog originated, I ask that the blog document the research and sources of a controversy. With that in mind, I can't help but make some mention of the ideas I've been working with as I've been outlining my dissertation proposal.

The subject of academic identity for Latin@ students interests me. My experience working on the GEAR UP grant here in Tucson and summers teaching a bridge course for underrepresented student populations has exposed me to a diverse representation of student stances towards school.

If you look at the picture next to my profile, it is pictograph of the calmecac or school for Aztec children (often nobility, but I (re)imagine it in an inclusive concept). Courses I've had on the rhetoric of the Americas before the Conquest has given me a generative epistemology for connecting with the field of composition and rhetoric. For that reason, I have been working with the Aztec/Nahua figure of the pochteca.

Monday, February 7, 2011

More Pedagogical Praxis with Technology
So I'm interested in the intersections of race and technology, especially with regard to Latinas/os and technology. Here is yet another example of something I will use in class. My avatar looks strangely like my father, but the accents are a dig at the assumption that British accents are somehow reifications of education and an ideal for Others to fall short of.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

From Jennifer Epstein's Politico story:
"
An Ohio lawmaker is accusing the state’s new governor of saying he doesn’t “need” African-Americans.
“I don’t need your people,” state Sen. Nina Turner said Republican Gov. John Kasich told her when she offered her help in building a racially diverse cabinet. All 22 of Kasich’s appointees since he took office Jan. 10 have been white, and only five are female.

Turner, who is black and a Democrat, said on Thursday that she was “kind of perplexed” by Kasich’s comment. “ I wasn’t quite sure whether or not he was referring to my ethnic group people or ‘my people’ as in the 350,000 constituents I serve in this state that represent all ethnic groups, all religious groups,” she said. “I didn’t understand what ‘I’m not going to hire your people’ means.”

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

It's interesting to note that they compare Italian and German nationalities to what they joke are the characteristics of Mexicans. They avoid insulting Italians and Germans, instead focusing their British "wit" on constructing a negative representation of Mexicans and Mexico with their discourse.

"Ambassador Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza has demanded an apology after
Richard Hammond jokingly described Mexicans as "lazy, feckless,
flatulent [and] overweight" during an episode of the BBC2 show screened
on Sunday.
His co-presenters Jeremy Clarkson and James May went on to describe Mexican food as "refried sick".
Clarkson,
who has repeatedly been criticised for making offensive comments on the
programme, said on Sunday's show there would be no complaints this time
because the Mexican ambassador would: "be sitting there with a remote
control like this,". The presenter pretended to slump in a chair,
snoring.
The Mexican ambassador has written to the BBC, however, demanding that it order the presenters to make a public apology.
"The
presenters of the programme resorted to outrageous, vulgar and
inexcusable insults to stir bigoted feelings against the Mexican people,
their culture as well as their official representative in the United
Kingdom," he wrote.
"These offensive, xenophobic and humiliating
remarks serve only to reinforce negative stereotypes and perpetuate
prejudice against Mexico and its people."
The Top Gear
hosts made the comments when they discussed a Mexican sports car, the
Mastretta. Hammond said: "Why would you want a Mexican car? Because cars
reflect national characteristics don't they?
"Mexican cars are
just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a
fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the
middle on as a coat.""